Tuesday, 29 April 2014

Here is
the e-mail version of my “spring, after Tucson
” mailed list (just now reaching . Most of this is stuff I’ve had but finally
got through research (some, like the LL3.10 below took several tries to finally
get done). The hexahedrite (NWA 8302) and Fukang I picked up in Tucson
and was thrilled to get them. I am keeping a full slice of the hexahedrite in
my collection as it will be the first iron I have that shows a heat alteration
rim. I am hanging on to a piece of many of the other things as well, as several
of these are things I’ll probably never get as nice an example of (or any)
again (L-melt, LL3.10, Eucrite breccia…..)

I should probably note (and should have on the mailed
version as well) that many of you, as I, have not received your tax refund. If
this is your case and you are interested in things offered here, I’ll be happy
to set things aside for you until the IRS sends your refund. So, don’t hesitate
to ask me to set things aside. This is actually the case with ANY of my offerings
any time of the year. I just ask that, if things change, to let me know if you
have changed your mind so I can move the item on to the next interested party.

I put a question on the TKW as the official report is the
22,4kg and the small card I got when I bought the stuff said it was
15.25kilograms total. Either way, this is a nice, interesting meteorite. It
shows a good number of Nuemann lines as a hexahedrite should, as well as lots
of small sulfide inclusions. However, this also shows a very distinct
re-crystallized heat-alteration rim along the outer edge. I have seen pictures
of this in iron meteorites but I don’t recall ever having had an iron before
that shows this feature. I picked the full slices as they have the clearest
heat rim. The cut pieces all also show natural edge with an alteration zone.

Note: I may end up cutting up the
complete slice if it does not sell as is. Let me know what size smaller piece
you might like and I’ll try to end up with something close to that size if I do
cut this.

I got three fragments (two of which fit together) from a
dealer in Tucson. It had a weird
green color and an odd texture that showed some fairly large vesicles. This
made both the seller and I suspect that this was an impact melt. The interior
upon cutting supported this hypothesis and later research work confirmed it.
The interior shows no chondrules, vesicles and rounded metal/ sulfide
inclusions in a fine-grained green matrix. This highly shocked meteorite likely
formed by a nearby impact that was large enough to completely melt this
material before it escaped its parent body.

When I heard the news that this was a 3.10 I didn’t get too
excited. BUT when I looked up just how rare such a thing is I began wishing it
didn’t, more or less, take three tries to finally get this thing classified
(giving up around 25 grams on each try). Currently there are only four LL3.10
meteorites known (including this one) and only another 6 classified at lower
metamorphic grades (including Antarctic recoveries). If you include all the Hs
and Ls (the rest of the “ordinary chondrites”) then you have another 16
meteorites known with this low or lower of a metamorphic level. Needles to say,
these silces show LOTS of chondrules. Also needles to say, I have very little
of this special material. I have under 100 grams TOTAL remaining.

This is one I bought in Tucson
last year. The seller, rightfully it turns out, thought this was a type 3 as it
shows quite a lot of chondrules on the exterior surfaces. I wasn’t so sure, or
at least wasn’t willing to pay the big premium that was being asked on this
“type 3” (something like $3/g I think – pretty typical asking price these days
for a raw “out of the field” type 3). We eventually came to an agreement we
both could live with and one where I can offer this now proven type 3 for
substantially less than its starting price from the seller. The interior does
not show much metal (pretty much just sulfides) but is nice in texture. There
are lots of chondrules of many sizes clearly visible on this roughly 55mm x 35mm
cut face. The rest of the stone is

natural wind-polished crust and some fracture (secondary
crust?). Nice as it is or great for cutting into slices (which I will likely do
if this does not sell intact).

This is a piece that I sold after I had sent pieces off for
the classification work. After several years it became clear that this was not
going to get done so the buyer sold it back to me. More material sent off and
the work got done this time. This was originally an individual that was
completely crusted but had about 30% secondary crust (so there is likely at
least one more related piece out there somewhere). I went ahead and cut the
thing up. Slices of this, like most CKs, do not show a lot of chondrules (CKs
average only around 15% chondrules in volume) but has an interesting greenish
gray matrix.

This is one I wish I could have gotten more of. This showed
some brecciation on its natural surface. The inside after cutting makes one say
“wow”. This shows LOTS of lighter colored clasts of all sizes surrounded by
dark highly shocked material. The material in the clasts and the surrounding
matrix all have the same composition, making this a “monomict” breccia. This
texture is likely due to impacts nearby on the surface of Vesta (yep, the Dawn
mission data is finally getting out and it confirms that Vesta is the source
for most of the meteorites classiied as HEDs in our collections!). I had this
professionally cut (I hair too big for my saw) and highly polished on one side
to really bring out the best in this stone.

1)Slices:

a) .6 grams - 12mm x 10mm x 2mm -
sold

b) 1.3 grams - 19mm x 11mm x 2mm -
$32

c) 2.4 grams - 23mm x 17mm x 2mm -
$60

d) 5.1 grams - 29mm x 27mm x 2mm -
$120

e) 9.9 grams - 40mm x 40mm x 2mm -
$225 – complete slice.

f) 23.5 grams - 70mm x 58mm x 2mm
- $500 – complete slice.

FUKANG,China:
(Pallasite). Found 2000. TKW = 1003 kilograms.

This is one that I offered (as a larger slice) on a recent
e-mail offering. I picked this up as part of a collection I purchased from a
German fossil dealer as a 100 gram square slice. It had never been coated so
there were a couple small rust spots on it. In my attempt to put a new shine on
this (using my antiquated polishing equipment) I managed to break it into
several pieces – the ones listed here. All of these are still large enough to
show the texture of this beautiful meteorite with its huge olivine crystals.

1)Slices:

a) 18.9 grams - 60mm x 30mm x 2mm
- $280

b) 26.4 grams - 60mm x 43mm x 2mm
- sold

c) 53.7 grams - 89mm x 50mm x 2mm
- sold

ACASTA GNEISS:
Ancient rock from Acasta River, Canada.

Here is something I picked up a piece of a few years ago
and, when I mentioned it, I found there was a big demand for the stuff (my
piece got whittled down quite a bit in supplying pieces to people). I finally
got some more this past Tucson.
These are small 15mmx 20mm or so) pieces mounted in a labeled perky box. This
material is, at this point, the oldest known rock in the world. At 4.2 Billion
years old this is not quite as old as most meteorites but formed surprisingly
early in Earth’s history.

Small
(15mm plus) fragment in perky box – sold out. Will try to get more.

Please note:

The post office keeps increasing shipping
rates (despite the government’s official claim is that there is no
inflation). For small US
orders $3 should still be fine for now. Larger orders are now $12 (insurance is
extra if desired – I’ll look it up if you want it). The real increases came in
overseas (or even Canada)
shipping. These prices pretty much doubled from what they were a couple years
ago. Now small overseas orders are around $9 (I’ll have to custom quote any
larger items/ orders). Thankfully, it seems that the rate for registration
(recommended on more valuable overseas orders) is still around $12.

My fax
machine has pretty much blown up on me. I can nurse it to work if I must (but
often loose the incoming fax if I am not really careful). For overseas orders,
it probably is best to go ahead and use my brmeteorites@yahoo.com e-mail. I
generally get/ deal with phone calls quicker but I will try to keep up on
checking e-mail this time.

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

I think this is my last “after Tucson”
list. Now I’ll have to dig around to come up with new future offerings (I need
to get a mailed list pulled together soon as well – it’ll be a busy couple
weeks ahead). This is going out a bit later than I would have liked as I went
to Montrose (and took longer than expected) to look at some potential
meteorites (none were, unfortunately) and buy an old broken pocket watch. I
will try to keep on top of e-mails this afternoon but there may be a couple
issues. First, I do have some people coming over later (mine and Blake’s
birthday – now over the hill at 50 even) so I may not get to check as often as
usual. In addition we have ferocious winds right now. High winds like this, for
some reason, often knock out our internet/ DSL connection. Strange, I thought
it was all wires in the ground. Anyway, I’ll do my best to keep checking (the
phone should always work, though we lost power and phone for an hour or so a
few days ago during a wind storm as well).

Two pieces that fit together were found about 30 meters apart.
This meteorite contains clasts/ fragments of various compositions and colors –
making it look very much like a howardite. However, this lacked enough pyroxene
to be classified as a howardite. I recently sold out of what I had of this
meteorite (and tossed out the remaining info cards) but then picked up a few
more pieces in Tucson (and re-made
new cards).

a)2.0
gram slice – 20mm x 17mm x 2.5mm - $25

b)4.2
gram slice – 42mm x 20mm x 2mm - $50

c)6.8
gram slice – 35mm x 25mm x 3mm - $75

d)20.2
gram end piece – 40mm x 20mm x 16mm - $200

IMILAC,
Chile: Stony-iron (Pallasite). Found 1822.

This is a beautiful ¼ slice (2 cut edges at right angle to
each other with the remainder being a long natural edge). This is cut super
thin so light passes through all of the crystals. This fantastic material has
gotten hard (and expensive) to acquire these days. I think this is the first
thin slice of Imilac I have had in several years or more. A simply stunning
display piece.

I don’t think I have ever had any pieces of this meteorite
before. I got a small lot of fragments, cut fragments and a couple slices at
the show. Most of this does indeed look very similar in texture to typical
Millbillillie but with much smaller crystal size (really fine-grained).
However, a couple pieces do show some uniform (pretty much no crystal texture
visible) light gray clasts. Most of the fragments and cut fragments have some
(some pieces quite a lot) of nice dark crust that has not had its
texture wind-polished away.

This is the stuff that showed weird green fusion crust on
the rare pieces that had crust. Its low iron content, texture and other
features have led some to believe that this may be from the planet Mercury
(though others would argue that this material is far too ancient to be from a
body of that size). Regardless, this is strange and unique material no matter
where it came from. I have a few cut pieces and one fragment (that actually
does have a small 3mm x 2mm patch of the weird green crust) that I picked up
from Matt in Denver back in December but only recently got around to cataloging
them.

This is one that brings up mixed emotions for me. I am
thrilled at its discovery as I am the one that pretty much discovered this gem.
It was in the “likely junk to go out to the rock garden” pile that a fellow
meteorite dealer had at the 2013 Denver Show. He had me going through MANY
(easily over 100) rocks to see what might be important (with the rain and
flooding during the show, I had plenty of time for this and found it, at times,
to be an interesting distraction). I saw this one in the “junk” pile and
commented that it most definitely was a meteorite as it had clearly visible
shock veins. Thankfully, he had cut the thing so I had a cut surface to run the
XRF on. I expected the thing to come up as a Eucrite, as that is pretty much
what the thing looked like. HOWEVER, the chemistry of the thing came up as
MARTIAN! At that point, the owner said that if this turned out to be the case
he would give me “a complete slice of like 20grams” (gads, I wish I had gotten
THAT in writing now). Anyway, not only did this thing turn out to be Martian,
it turned out to be a completely new type of Martian! It has some similarities
to various features of Nakhlites and Shegottites but yet is overall different.
I did indeed get a package from the owner containing a sample for my helping in
the discovery once this was officially reported. It contained a 2.2g block. I
double/ triple checked the box to be sure I didn’t miss anything else in the
packing material. Nope, nothing. I figured more would come later after cutting.
I checked the Meteoritical Bulletin report for the thing and it did list me as
having some of this (but unfortunately not anything about my part in the
discovery) and it did indeed confirm that my share was indeed 2.2 grams. Now
don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to have this (certainly better than NOTHING
which is easily what I could have ended up with). I guess I am being a little greedy
myself. A couple grams certainly will change my month, but 20grams would have
changed my year (but then, I would have found it really difficult to break up a
complete slice). I split the thick block into two thinner slices and then broke
those up into the pieces listed here. I have already sold some and am keeping a
small piece for myself so I have less than 1.25 grams total to sell. The price is going to seem really high BUT
this is right about what much larger pieces were selling (and pieces were indeed
selling) for per gram in Tucson. The price has supposedly been raised (right
after the show) to $8159/ gram. Given what the other unique Mars rock “Black
Beauty” has been bringing, this is probably not all that unreasonable or
surprising. Anyway, get em while I got em. I’ll give the contact info for the
holder of the main portion of this material if I run out or you really need
something bigger than I have here. All of these pieces are in a membrane box.

Here is a eucrite that came from the NWA area but has an
actual name and known find location. In addition, this is interesting in that
it is a breccia containing clasts of many types (including subophitic basalts,
granular microgabbros and impact melt clasts). I have two piece that were once
one; a long part slice that I managed to break (not intentionally however)
during transport back home from the show.

19.0
gram part slice – 35mm x 34mm x 6mm - $230

25.1
gram part slice – 45mm x 35mm x 6mm - $300

SPRING WATER,
Canada: Stony-iron (Pallasite). Found 1931.

Here is a fairly small block that I have left exactly as I
got it. It is a piece that is cut on all sides. It has not been polished or
coated but yet still shows bright metal (with no distinct rusting) and nice
bright crystals. I think that this was an old research work piece as it is in a
research type snap lid plastic vial. This also has the number 135d written on
it in black ink (a big part o the reason I left this thing alone – handling
while polishing or the spray coating material could have easily destroyed this
feature) indicating that this was likely cut from the early Nininger Spring
water specimen.

11.67
gram block – 17mm x 14mm x 12mm - $250

VACA MUERTA,
Chile: Stony-iron (Mesosiderite). Found 1861.

This is a small cut fragment that came in as part of a
collection. It is nothing special but the small (17mm x 11mm) cut face does
show more metal than most Vaca pieces I have had.